Article January 20, 1986 Issue

The arms race that will bless

MARJORIE MACARTNEY

The world struggles over ideals and ideologies. While destructive, human methods have been used to advance both, the battle we must win cannot be fought on that level or through such methods. The Apostle Paul understood Christian warfare and the means to victory. Hear a portion of one of his letters to the church at Corinth: "Though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh: (for the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;) casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ."^{II Cor. 10:3–5.} Paul had learned that God's weapons are divinely mental. His counsel is as appropriate to us today as then.

We refute what opposes genuine peace. We silence the false pride that would set itself up against the true knowledge of God, not by physically battling but by prayerfully unseating the uncertainty of human reasoning. In prayer we find the surety of divine guidance and intelligence, and so we are able to surrender every ungodlike purpose in obedience before the power of God.

In Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, Mary Baker Eddy, there is a paragraph with the marginal heading "Christian warfare." In that paragraph Mrs. Eddy states, "Christians must take up arms against error at home and abroad. They must grapple with sin in themselves and in others, and continue this warfare until they have finished their course."^{Science and Health, p. 29.} This is the arms race in which we are to be engaged. We are arming ourselves spiritually, taking up arms against error and sin, which are the foes of peace; we are not contending against people and nations. Error and sin—any claim to power apart from God—cannot be obliterated physically. The arms race which will bless and the one we can win is the one that takes place in our individual thought and life where Christ gives us complete control. Mrs. Eddy defines Christ in this way: "The divine manifestation of God, which comes to the flesh to destroy incarnate error."^{Ibid., p. 583.}

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